jockey, front man of Lawrence metalcore group The Esoteric and a new gangsta rap group, Balls Deep, Cruz makes half of what he made working "traditional" jobs, but he's doing what he loves: making people enjoy music as much as he does. "When working with Stevie, his main concern is that everyone is having a good time instead of trying to make money or look cool," says Meredith Vacek, Olathe senior, who has joined forces with DJ Cruz on numerous occasions. "Music is everything to him."
The club reaches capacity at 12:45 a.m. and Cruz, who has been bouncing happily on his miniature stage behind a mixer, turntables and CD players since 10 p.m., claps along to Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself." After a few drinks, he's not afraid to slip into recent hits by Missy Elliot and Justin Timberlake. The crowd surprisingly embraces it. Next he might throw on some of the current decade's electroclash from Adult (what his audience tends to request as "that '80s rave stuff") or Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It." Even in spinning pop, Cruz's tastes are eclectic. He further exemplifies this through his other performances, such as Friday's KJHK Glitchathon (see calendar).
Cruz, who began DJing at a friend's house to relieve boredom, makes no claim as a turntablist and acknowledges he needs to get better at beat matching. "I guess I'm an all-right DJ," says. "But I'm really not."
Behind the Mic
It's Saturday night and The Esoteric is practicing in Cruz's basement. Cruz looks friendly, as usual, in a black T-shirt bearing the name of Louisiana metal band Crackfight. Standing near the door in his miniature practice studio, the short, smiley, light-bearded 25-year-old has a microphone in one hand and grabs a PBR from a 12-pack, which sits comically dead center in the room. Four more black-shirted young men line the walls and start thrashing. Cruz sets down the beer and starts to shake to the music. His measure approaches and his passion is evident.
Bam! Roooooooooaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!! He hunches over and screams into the microphone so hard veins pop out of his neck and the roar fills the last few centimeters of the green and yellow, acoustic foam-padded, Christmas-light framed room, which is six feet tall - if that.
Cruz is a different man now, still cute, bubbly and nice, but his energy level and intensity shoot through the roof when he's screaming. Beads of sweat drop from his hair, nose and chin like a faucet that wasn't quite shut off. He opens the door after a song to spit outside and fan the room, hoping to cool himself and his sweat-drenched band mates.
Cruz got into music like jazz, blues and rock because his dad loved it, but he got into metal because of the bands Metallica and Pantera. In the Fresno, Calif., neighborhood where he grew up, everyone listened to rap. But one day Cruz estranged himself by trading a LL Cool J tape for Metallica. At 12, he saw Pantera in concert, and the singer helped him on stage. At that moment, he saw the exchange of energy concerts emit and realized he needed to be involved with music.
In 1994, Cruz found himself playing in a band in Wichita when he met drummer, and now Lawrence resident, Marshall Kilpatric. They started a new band called Noisome Groove that lasted until 1999. The two then moved to Lawrence and later joined The Esoteric. Kilpatric describes Cruz as the motivated, cohesive unit of the band that brings everyone together. "He's on fire man, he's got the spark," he says. "He's got to carry the huge force we play behind him." And he does.
Though they occasionally tease Cruz for the wide range of tastes contained in his 1,000 albums and his acceptance of pop music, Kilpatric says the band, which "fires" Stevie daily for saying something stupid, appreciates his dynamic personality and ability to listen to A Flock of Seagulls then sound as if he's spitting blood. "If you're going to front a band called The Esoteric, you better damn well be esoteric," he says. With his eclectic tastes, non-stop positive attitude, epic songs inspired by literature and metal-core band, Stevie Cruz is indeed a musical anomaly that only a select group of people understands.
—Eric Braem, Jayplay writer, can be reached at ebraem@kansan.com.
thursday, november 6, 2003
jayplay 11